Supported liquid membrane pervaporation (SLMPV) is a pervaporation process for separatingvolatile organic compounds (VOCs) from their dilute aqueous solutions through a supportedliquid membrane. It integrates simultaneous extraction of the VOCs from the aqueous solutionwith vacuum stripping of the VOCs from the organic phase in one membrane module. Using aliquid membrane consisting of nonvolatile hydrocarbons immobilized in the micropores ofhydrophobic porous polypropylene hollow fibers with or without a plasma-polymerized ultrathinsilicone membrane on the outside diameter of the fibers, trichloroethylene (TCE) was separatedand concentrated from its aqueous solution at 25
C and essentially atmospheric pressure. Thefeed TCE concentration was varied between 50 and 950 ppm; the permeate pressure range was0.6-70 mmHg. A 78-fiber, 30-33-cm-long module can achieve as much as 98% removal of TCE.The hexadecane SLM is permselective for TCE: the experimental selectivity was 30 000, andthe intrinsic selectivity could be as high as 2 × 10
5, much higher than the values reportedlyobtained by any solid membrane. The hexadecane SLM performance indicated long-termstability: about 30% decreases in both pervaporation flux and selectivity were observed in arun lasting 4 months. A mathematical model has been proposed to predict the exit concentration,permeation flux, and selectivity from the properties of the membrane and VOCs and the operatingconditions.